Piece of music once played — gripping performance (8)
I believe the answer is:
nocturne
'piece of music' is the definition.
(nocturne is a kind of piece of music)
'once played gripping performance' is the wordplay.
'played' indicates anagramming the letters (letters playing around).
'gripping' means one lot of letters goes inside another (inserted letters are gripped).
'performance' becomes 'turn' (turn is a kind of performance).
'once' with letters rearranged gives 'noce'.
'noce' going around 'turn' is 'NOCTURNE'.
(Other definitions for nocturne that I've seen before include "Chopin piece" , "Pensive piano piece" , "Piece of dreamy music" , "Pensive lyrical piece of music" , "Dreamy piano peace popularised by Chopin" .)